Floss Keepers

I was starting the get a huge tangled mess of floss this weekend as I have been embroidering all of the faces for my new line of PDF Doll and Animal Sewing Patterns. 

Instead of letting it get to the point where I just give up and throw out all of the floss, I decided to make up some floss keepers.  I cannot even remember where I saw this but someone used clothespins to organize their floss. 

Basically, you put the tail into the pin, wind it around and clip the other tail into the pin.  This is so useful.  It really keeps the floss organized.  But I wanted something less plain.  I started thinking about these altered clothespins that I always see on papercrafting sites.  I never made them because it seemed like something pretty useless.  Now I have a reason to make these altered clothespins. 

 I started with a couple of scraps of scrapbooking paper.  I cut the paper down into little sticks the size of the front of the clothespins. 

Then I applied double stick tape to each clothespin.

 Then, I attached the paper onto the clothespins and wound the floss around each pin. 

 I threw a few extras into my sewing basket for the scraps of floss.

I thought that this would make a great gift.  Clothespins are $1.00 for 30.  So, you can make up several sets for under $5.00.  This might be a nice craft show item.  Also, my niece just made up a friendship bracelet kit for one of her friends and she wound floss around business cards or something like that.  This would be much cuter.  Some spools of floss, beads, safety pins tucked into a little makeup bag.  That would be a sweet and affordable gift.

Because I already had everything out, I wanted to make up a set for my sister's birthday.

 I've seen photo puzzles with clothespins, so I decided to make up a set of the floss keepers with a photo of my niece.

 I just sliced up the photo and taped it onto the clothespins.  I think that it would be a cute gift for a birthday or Mother's Day.

Animal Party Gift

We have a birthday today and I thought that I would make up a couple sets of these little animals.  Kamille is completely obsessed with putting collars and leashes on her little pets.  So, I came up with the idea of using hair rubber bands to make the collars so I didn't have to constantly keep tying ribbon onto these little animals.  While I was at the Dollar Store picking up the hair bands, I also got those little plastic barretts shaped like bows for the animals ears, the clippy barretts to make earrings, and the ribbon for the leashes. 

 Last time I used some charms on the collars that I had in my stash, but I lucked out and found a pack of hair rubber bands that already had charms on there.

I just took a decent length of ribbon and hot glued it into the hair rubber band, covering the metal closure part.  Then, I looped around the other end and glued it into a handle like a leash would have. 

For the earrings, I took the little clippies and hot glued flowers and other doodads I had around the craft room onto them to make sets of earring.

I also made mini pet beds and outfits.  I will try to post the tutorial for the outfits with the pattern later this week. 

Baby Booties Pattern - Great Charity Donation

These adorable little booties are a great way to use up scraps of fleece left over from other projects, plus they make a nice gift or charity donation.  With Christmas right around the corner, I am always looking for ways to give back and celebrate the amazing life I have by helping others.  Check out the pattern here.

P.S. - they are just as cute in camo or other boy prints. 

Dress Up Clothes Patterns

Looking for a great gift for this holiday season?  How about dress up clothes for toddlers/preschoolers.  I even donated several to the preschool classroom.

You can make 2 for under $8.00.  Talk about a great and affordable gift.  Plus, what little kid doesn't like dinos and dragons?  We also have bears, puppies, cows, and more.  Here.

Gifts For the Cook

Here are some cute handcrafted gifts to give the baker/cook in your life.

Book Markers

I'm not hot on the design, but I love the idea.  I was thinking of changing the idea up a bit and making them look like little girls, one for each of my mom's granddaughters.  Tutorial here.

Click here to get this free apron pattern from Joann's.

Diva Dish Washing Gloves

Blue Bird Studio has a simple to follow tutorial for fancy dishwashing gloves.  I might make a few pairs this year.

Recipe Book

You can easily put together a family favorites recipe book for the cook in your life.  This one is based on a paper bag album, but the pages are already prefilled with recipes.

You can get a video tutorial on creating paper bag albums here.

Crayon Cake and other Teacher's Gifts

This post is dedicated to easy to make gifts for your teacher for the holiday season.  My sister sent me a link to this awesome pencil cake on Formal Fringe.  My daughter is in preschool so they don't really use many pencils.  I decided to change up the original idea.

Inspiration Post

This original tutorial uses foam rings to create the shape of the cake.  I also saw a very similar tutorial where she used an old cookie tin.  Yeah for recycling.

My Creation

As you can see, I used crayons.  I think it took about 4 boxes.  I always pick up a bunch of boxed when they go on 25 cent sale a couple of times a year.  For my form, I used cardboard oatmeal containers - 1 large and 1 small.  I cut them down to be about 1" shorter than the crayons with a pair of scissors and then hot glued the two layers together.  The crayons are held on with a rubber band on each layer so that they can be reused, but Miss Vicki loved it so much that it is permanently displayed in the classroom.  Had I know, I would have hot glued them on.  Actually, the project was so simple that my preschooler put each crayon behind the rubberband with a little help from mom.  (Plus, the first day of school was our teacher's birthday so it worked out really well.)

Crayon Monogram

Let me just say that I dodged a bullet with this project.  I almost made it instead of the crayon cake above.  

This is another one of those proojects where you would hardly need a tutorial.  Seriously.  Though she did make a great point - she printed the letter out in the size she wanted and then had the cute text next to it.  Which is cute.  Most of them that I have seen as just the monogram.  You can find this tutorial at Chic & Cheap Nursery's Blog.

Pencil Scarf

This is another project I am in love with.  I will be making a couple of these this year.  How fun.  I actually considered just making it from fleece to save time.  If I do, I will post a tutorial. 

Zakka Life has the knit pattern here.  As a lefty, I have found knitting totally impossible, but I do crochet.  I am pretty sure that I could make up my own crochet pattern for this scarf without much thought.  I've also seen a similar scarf done as a crayon.  That looked like more work.

Some easier options for people with multiple teachers.



I know that not everyone is still at the point of just having one teacher to gift to so below are some easier, less expensive options for gifts. 

Embellished Hand Sanitizer



This project looks to be about $1.00 for the bottle of hand sanitizer plus some scraps from your stash.  Plus, your child could really help with this one.  It's just embellished with stickers.  Personally I never use this stuff.  It's horrible for you, but I notice that every single classroom has more than one bottle of it.  You could do the same this with handsoap.  Thanks to Little Birdie Secrets.

The Classic Apple

First, I totally love Skip to My Lou.  It just gets better and better.  You can find the free printable for this project here.

We Need Smore Teachers Like You!

I love this.  Roots & Wings has the tutorial where she shows you how to make this great mini milk carton from 1 12"x12" piece of paper.  Plus, I personally love consumable gifts.  Who doesn't?  You could fill it with candy, cookies, supplies for the class, whatever floats your boat. 



Hope you enjoy the teacher gift ideas I put together. 



I Want S'more Caramel Corn

I have been dying to make some sort of smore inspired caramel corn for several months now.  I finally had the time to develop this great recipe:

1 batch of air popped pop corn (or 2 bags of microwave popcorn)

place the popcorn in a greased 9x13 or larger pan and put it into the oven at 220 while you make the caramel

For the caramel:

1 cup butter

2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup corn syrup

1 tbsp molasses

1 tsp cinnamon

 Mix all of the ingredients together and bring to a boil over medium heat in a very heavy pan. 

 Once the mixture comes to a rolling boil (i.e. a boil that you cannot stir down) then you remove it from the heat and mix in 1 tbsp of baking soda.  It is going to foam up.  This is the right thing.  Baking soda is going to make the caramel crisper.

 Stir the caramel sauce around until you have all of your warmed popcorn coated. 

You need to keep the caramel corn in the oven at 220 for the next hour, stirring every 15 minutes.

 While your caramel corn is cooking, you should cut up 1 bag of mini candy bars into thirds.  You could use chocolate chips, but I love the look and taste of the candy bars.  Once the caramel corn is totally cool, you can mix in 2 cups of mini marshmallows and the candy bars.  You could also add some mini graham crackers like teddy grahams, but the caramel has a flavor similar to a graham cracker. 

I am totally making these tomorrow!

Check out the full tutorial from Cut Out and Keep.

Meet Molly

Molly, Molly... so sweet and lovely, t'was bittersweet to see you go. Stitched up out of love and a little vintage fabric... some modern trims, she really got my heart.

I stitched up this pattern: Black Apple Doll

to make this doll for my sister-in-law to give to her niece (thanks Kate for supporting handmade!).

I think she probably made a little girl very happy!

An Emily Martin original, the Black Apple Doll.

Thanks Emily, I've used this pattern to spread joy several times now.

I hope you do too!

Wooden Fairy House Tutorial

I was sooooo busy at Christmas that I didn't have time to get all of my projects photographed and blogged.  This is a cute little fairy house that I put together for Kamille.  I am getting so tired of plastic junk that breaks and has a ton of tiny pieces that immediately get lost.  She was desperate for the Pixie Hollow magical fairy house.  She already has a fairy jewelry box/house that she never plays with.  I loved this build a tree house kit, but it is +$130.  The pieces make a house that is about 22" tall. 

For my smaller version that is about 12" tall, I used 3 wood clock faces from Michael's.  They are in with all of the wood burning and other wood things.  I actually wanted to make 1 more tier with a huge wood slice, but they didn't have any.  I also planned on using branches instead of a dowel, but it just got too cold and snowed before I could go out into the yard and cut some.  So, I just used a dowel to make the supports.  I screwed them into the wood slices after pre-drilling the holes.  The whole project could use a few coats of sealant, but I need to wait for slightly warmer weather to seal it. 

 I also made a coffee table and a little felt leaf couch for the house.  Kamille got a bunch of little princesses that came with furniture, so she is also using that in her house. 

I made this little rug out of felt. 

 Here you can see the leaf hammock bed and the tiny blanket and pillow I made from felt.  I just hot glued the hammock onto the posts. 

One additional element you cannot see is the little ladder that the fairies can climb to get from one level to the next.  Kamille has been playing with this little house everyday.  It seems much sturdier than the plastic cottage.  Plus, there is some room for imagination.  It doesn't talk or light up or sing.  It is 100% powered by creative play.  Also, the project was more in the range of $30.00, rather than $130.  It may not be as fancy, but it also doesn't take up half of her room.

Teacup Piggy Project

This year all Kamille wanted for Christmas were 2 teacup pigs, which she was calling purse pigs.  So, I tracked them down and they were actually pretty affordable - $12.99 for the pig and it's plastic teacup.  I wanted them to be a gift from the man in red, so I needed them to have a bit more pop than just presenting naked pigs under the tree. 

Last year we did a post on upcycled dog toys.  One of the items was from a blogger who took an old suitcase and turned it into a small dog bed.  I don't have a small dog, but I still had that project in my mind because it was so cute.  So, I decided to take this old rummage sale find - a hairdryer case - $2.00 and turn it into a little bed for the piggies. 

 This project wasn't hard and had a lot of give because all of the trim covers up an little mistakes you may make.  However, it took several hours.  First, I used hot glue to put a layer of fleece on the outside of the case, top and bottom.  I wanted it to look upholstered.  Once I had the fleece on there, I trimmed away the excess.  Next, I added the fabric with more hot glue.  It is a slow process to smooth out the fabric and get it looking just right.  Use HIGH temp glue for the best results.  I then trimmed away the extra fabric.  Then I used ribbons to form a decorative band around the edges and to cover the fabric.  I also glued some trim onto the handle strap to jazz it up. 
 

 After that, I used the same ribbon trim to make some "hinges" that would hold the case open.  I added the self-sticking hooks to hold extra clothes (which are mia somewhere in Kamille's room right now) and accessories.  Finally, I filled the bottom with stuffing and then glued in the leopard fabric to make the bed.  I left enough room that she can close the case with both pigs inside and carry it around or store it.   

  I also made some outfits for the pigs.  They sell outfits that retail for about $10.00 - which is crazy.  Plus, the outfits have arms and legs.  No 3-year-old is getting the arms and legs of one of these little pigs through the sleeves of some tiny outfit.  I based my pattern on a dog coat.  It velcros under the neck and tummy.

 The final item I made was this little purse that holds both of the pigs.